Sharing the Method with others has always been about listening to what people are wanting. Last Saturday’s webinar, Strengthening Your Core using the Miracle Ball Method was amazing. For me, it’s listening to what those attending, are saying. The answers many times are in their own questions.
Connecting to your core
We all want that connection to our body. Forming the sentences of what we are experiencing, and where we want to go, are not easy. There isn’t a language for that. Most of us are simply taught what we should do to get what we want. You must feel where you are, physically and in many ways emotionally, first. This provides clarity. Jumping ahead of ourselves to solutions has proven to be hit or miss. It’s usually motivated by an anxiety, to “fix” our problems. Clarity, or a sense of where we are, is the missing link for most of us. There seems to be a significant disconnect from the sensory experience of being in our body, while simultaneously looking outside our body for solutions. This keeps us stuck and prevents us from moving freely throughout our lives. We can’t try to do movement, whatever movement it is, without feeling the instrument. In this case, the instrument is your physical body. I hope that becomes clear to those attending the classes and the webinars. Then the sky is the limit. First you feel. You can’t move an idea. The idea must connect to something real, an experience.
Why is it so different when we have that experience of feeling
Notice I don’t tell you what your experience should be, or whether you will like it or not. The reason is your body uses what you feel and knows how to give you feedback. Your body will always take you into a positive direction. Without that ability to sense the body, which is very natural, we are all doing it to some degree, our nervous system can’t make the adjustments necessary. The phenomenon is you are retraining your body to move as it once did or better through this process.
People have very different needs. In fact, I can’t say any two bodies are the same. We all have similar parts but use our bodies differently. Our thoughts are intricately connected to how we move our bodies. Our bodies are trained by information they’re getting from our thoughts. The way our bodies respond is instantaneous. It happens so fast, that we think if our body doesn’t do what we want, our body is doing something wrong, unguided by us or our history, and we are the victim of it.
Think of it this way, anyone can stretch, cook a meal, perhaps sing, or play an instrument. But as I know from doing many different things in my life, some things I do well, and other things not so much.
We assume when we exercise, doing the traditional sit-ups, crunches, and core work our bodies should just make it happen. That is where the old paradigm of just giving someone an exercise and assuming they will feel what you feel is not helpful. That is like giving someone who has never played the piano sheet music of Chopin and saying, make it happen. And most of us diligently try. And for some of us, we hit the notes and feel great. But many of us want more. We really do want to play that song, feel our body and enjoy it as well. Maybe we need some guidance.
Exercise doesn’t change your body, it’s the feeling of exercise that changes your body.
Bring your whole self into your movements. That is what makes movement fun. No one can teach you that. When you go into an exercise class, or play a game of golf, or simply take a walk, it’s how you feel your body, not how someone else told you to feel. Can trainers give you great direction, absolutely. They can also train the feeling out of bodies as well. That can cause a lifetime of challenges for some. Many times, it happens very young, in gym class or dance class for children. Remember dance, yoga, Pilates, tennis these are all kinds of movement. It’s like a musician who plays jazz, rock, classical. They are a musician and can use that ability to do many different kinds of music. The Method does not say one movement is better than the next. It is what you crave to feel and experience. It’s learning how to move your body that makes it unique.
Our bodies are giving us very clear responses when we do some exercises, and of course we blame our body rather than the input that our body is getting. Remember, instantaneously, you may not even notice the messages are coming from your past history with your body how you move.
So how do we change that? How do we improve that connection to strengthening your core? Reconnecting to your “instrument” is what the miracle ball method is. It’s getting a sense of learning through your kinesthetic sense, through feeling your body, and not through thinking about your body. When I say that for the most part people who haven’t taken the classes, attended the webinars, or read the book immediately say oh yes, I know exactly what you’re saying. I think a lot of people know intellectually, but when you get those complaints from your body, that’s when you know viscerally it’s not happening. The chronic backaches, injuries that don’t heal, stiffness and yes, the core exercises that seem to move anything but the core. How amazing that our body is giving us information, even the stuff we don’t want. But that can be a blessing in disguise to lead you further in the right direction.
The webinar really was the tip of the iceberg, and I always wish I had another hour. Perhaps get on the balls and put the webinar on in the background. Go to miracleballmethod.com, and you will find the recordings of all the webinars and more. Just like we can’t learn an instrument in a day or even learning to read took quite a while, the body is the same. But it can be such an enjoyable experience. What direction do you want to go in?